Wave power is still the most elusive of renewable energy sources. The challenges of building devices that can survive the seas without destroying ocean life and hooking them to power transmission lines from their potentially remote locations makes wave power more of a novelty than a significant source of global power generation.
Andre Sharon / Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation
But a new model for harvesting the power of the surf could change all that.
Rather than leaving devices in place and hooking them up to power grids, a Boston University scientist is proposing that ships go out and harvest wave power, store it in batteries, and bring it ashore for use. The technology is delightfully simple: The ship’s heavy hull would remain relatively stable, but long buoys attached to both sides with pivoting arms would bob up and down, driving a generator.
It’s cheaper than fixed-location devices because it doesn’t have to be built to withstand the worst the ocean can dish out. And existing vessels could be retrofitted to support the buoys and batteries.
All told, the ships could generate electricity at $0.15 per kilowatt hour, less than half the cost of power from existing wave technology and very much in line with the cost of more mainstream forms of renewable energy.